Ivan Pavlov, a Russian lawyer defending opposition politician Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was detained in Moscow on Friday morning, according to Team 29, an association of lawyers that he leads
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th April, 2021) Ivan Pavlov, a Russian lawyer defending opposition politician Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was detained in Moscow on Friday morning, according to Team 29, an association of lawyers that he leads.
"Ivan Pavlov is accused of violating Article 310 of the Criminal Code on the 'disclosure of data related to a preliminary investigation'", a statement read.
The lawyer came to Moscow from St. Petersburg for a hearing in the treason case against his client Ivan Safronov, an adviser to the head of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos and a former journalist. Security agents searched his room. The St. Petersburg apartment of his wife was also raided.
Earlier in the day, Moscow's Lefortovsky district court extended Safronov's arrest by two more months. The former military journalist is accused of leaking classified data on Russian arms export to Africa to the Czech intelligence, which later passed it on to the United States.
Team 29 said Pavlov had been taken in for questioning at the Investigative Committee, whose officials also searched the organization's office in St. Petersburg.
Pavlov has recently announced he would defend the Anti-Corruption Foundation after Russian prosecutors moved to designate it as an extremist organization. The case was reportedly labeled as classified.
In the meantime, another Safronov's defense lawyer, Dmitry Katchev, told Sputnik that his client viewed Pavlov's detention as an attempt to pressure him.
"We told [Safronov about Pavlov], he is certainly disappointed because Ivan Pavlov is one of the very few in the country who has experience in such cases, this is a big blow to the defense, this is pressure," Katchev said.
Safronov was arrested on July 7, 2020. Roscosmos insists that the alleged classified data leak is not in any way related to Safronov's advisory role in the agency. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the case has nothing to do with journalism either.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his part, said that Safronov's case was not politically motivated and that the leak was a confirmed fact, whether it was intentional or not.
